


Sky's the Limit

by nerdqueenenterprise



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 12:20:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11646441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdqueenenterprise/pseuds/nerdqueenenterprise
Summary: Young Jim Kirk is convinced there must be someone who wants to be his friend.





	Sky's the Limit

For all its neverending corn fields and infinitely straight roads, there is no place as small as Iowa, sometimes. You can forget it when the sun is high and you’re racing through fields on horseback, you can forget it in winter when the fields are empty and you can see for miles through crystal clear air, but you remember it again when it turns out the others don’t  _ really  _ want to play with you, the old people at the Horseshoe Café smiling and patting your head and calling you ‘the odd Kirk child’ as you walk away. His biggest problem is probably that he reads too much, of worlds long gone and not yet created, of endless galaxies and you and your trusted horse exploring a wilderness in the New World, of space battles and windjammers, of the first light in an unexplored place, the first person to step foot there, one small step but one giant leap.

_ Scientific facts supplement a theory of infinite expansion of the universe, and why shouldn’t we go out there and explore it? There are so many things we could see, so many places we could explore, so many peoples to meet! _

His peers are far less interested in that and have recently shown far less interest in anything that isn’t girls. Not that they were ever particularly interested.

His mother thinks he should read less,  _ the science books will still be there when you come back from meeting with your friends. _ His father (when he’s planetside) thinks Jim should spend more time with adults so he stops reading all those useless stories. His brother thinks Jim should come with him and his friends to hang out in town.

Grandpa Tiberius lets Jim use the telescope to look at the stars, and he always manages to conjure up a new science magazine that’s not too difficult for Jim. He also doesn’t tell on Jim when he sneaks out of the house to lie in the middle of a cornfield and stare up at the night sky, like now.

There’s something oddly cathartic about watching the stars blink into existence. He knows that the light he sees does partially come from long dead stars, but it also means that there are stars who’s light hasn’t reached him yet, who are waiting for him to explore them. So many lives out there, so many people, so many races of aliens. And the ships! The last time they’d wished his father goodbye for another voyage, they had been able to accompany him to Starfleet HQ in San Francisco, and Jim had gotten an albeit short view of the shipyard, where the first  _ Interceptor _ class is being built. He’s read all about Starfleet’s new border patrol class - faster than any ship before, with more weapons and better shields. When he goes to Starfleet (it’s been a very long time since he’d last thought of it as an  _ if _ ), he’d rather explore new planets and chart stars than patrol the border and get in fights with the Klingons and Romulans, he thinks, but really, as long as he can go to space he’ll do everything.

He hopes there’s a friend out there. A  _ best  _ friend. To cross the stars with. One of these stars must have a planet orbiting where Jim’s person is. His absolute best friend. Same as how Abby’s best friend is Zachary. Someone who really wants to go to space too. Who thinks science class is really great, but English class is just as great. Who likes flowers and music and space and who’s nice to people and who’s smart and funny and not too loud or too rowdy.

Jim hopes his best friend likes animals too.

 

Lightyears away, a head of glossy black hair is almost embedded in coarse brown fur. The head’s owner is wearing an almost pensive expression on a face that is supposed to show none.

    “If there is infinite diversity in infinite combinations, that must mean that on one of the several hundred known populated planets there is someone willing to be my friend. It is only logical, I-Chaya.”

The massive creature growls its assent.

**Author's Note:**

> *.* thank you for reading!


End file.
